Field of the Invention
This invention relates to data storage systems and more particularly to a digital asset management system for a plurality of users.
Description of the Related Art
Incorporated by reference in their entirety are the following patents, patent applications, and patent application publications relating to the underlying Xdrive system:
U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/163,626 filed Nov. 4, 1999 for Shared Internet Storage Resource, User Interface System, and Method;
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/570,583 filed May 12, 2000 for Shared Internet Storage Resource, User Interface System, and Method which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,351,776 B1 on Feb. 26, 2002;
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/073,775 filed Feb. 11, 2002 for Shared Internet Storage Resource, User Interface System, and Method which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,985,927 on Jan. 10, 2006;
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/075,311 filed Mar. 8, 2005 for Shared Internet Storage Resource, User Interface System, and Method which was published as United States patent application publication number US 2005-0193132 A1 on Sep. 1, 2005; and
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/089,173 filed Mar. 23, 2005 for Shared Internet Storage Resource, User Interface System, and Method which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,171,472 on Jan. 30, 2007;
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/089,174 filed Mar. 24, 2005 for Shared Internet Storage Resource, User Interface System, and Method which was published as United States patent application publication number US 2005-0204020 A1 on Sep. 15, 2005;
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/089,397 filed Mar. 24, 2005 for Shared Internet Storage Resource, User Interface System, and Method which was published as United States patent application publication number US 2005-0171956 A1 on Aug. 4, 2005; and
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/601,234 filed Nov. 17, 2006 for Network Personal Digital Video Recorder System (NPDVR).
The foregoing patent-related documents generally disclose the Xdrive system and may be used for reference and description with regards to the Xdrive system.
Increasingly, individuals with Internet access are subject to a large number of relevant and interesting information in the form of files, webpages, e-mails, audio/video media files, and the like. This is one of the great benefits of the general acceptance of the Internet, electronic communications, and the ability for electronic communication to interactively connect people despite great distances. Younger individuals having the available time are particularly involved in the dynamic informational environment provided by the Internet.
However, the increased availability and presentation of electronic media via the Internet or otherwise is somewhat akin to getting a drink of water from a fire hose. It has what the user wants, but not in a form that is readily consumed. While the fire hose paradigm has become more well known in the recent past, it may be particularly appropriate for the onslaught of available incoming media and information that is available to a person who accesses the Internet.
In the past, certain utilities have been available to users to help them sort and segregate information. These have generally been limited in scope and have generally not taken into account the ongoing and extensive nature of new, incoming media and information to which such users are subject from friends, family, unknown third-party commercial entities, and the like.
As a result, it would be advantageous and very helpful for users to be able to selectively and/or automatically organize, segregate, evaluate, and handle much of the media, that comes into the user on a daily (and even hourly) basis.
Prior attempts have been made in the art with respect to the management of digital assets, media files and otherwise. Brief descriptions of some of such prior attempts are set forth below. While the descriptions are believed to be accurate, no admission is made by them regarding their subject matter which is solely defined by the patent or reference involved.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20020180803 issued to Kaplan et al. on Dec. 5, 2002 for Systems, Methods And Computer. Program Products For Managing Multimedia Content discloses multimedia content that may be stored, manipulated, displayed, and packaged. The system provides a visual inventory of such files to facilitate retrieval of desired content from external removable media such as CDs, DVDs, or removable disk drives. The system enables the creation of removable media with desired multimedia content and hierarchical structure for playback as well as labeling and the like. Multimedia content may be shared in a simple manner with other such as friends or family members and the user may select specific multimedia content to be accessed by specified individuals via the Internet.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20020186844 issued to Levy et al. on Dec. 12, 2002 for User-friendly Rights Management Systems And Methods discloses a system where content is identified with an identifier which, once extracted, is used to index the database to locate a corresponding usage rule. Usage rights may be determined by linking the content identifier to external data with such usage rights possibly including the scope of permissible copying, rendering, transferring, etc. Content usage may be tracked via an identifier for billing, etc.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20040024720 issued to Fairweather on Feb. 5, 2004 for System And Method For Managing Knowledge discloses a memory system that may form collections of datums and enable manipulation and exchange of these collections both within a local machine as well as across a network. Such collections may support the ability to attach arbitrary tags or annotations to the binary data they contain without in any way altering the binary representation itself. Small executables, or “widgets,” may operate upon data for which they have minimal information, but least know the “type” of data involved.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20050246374 issued to Blinn et al. on Nov. 3, 2005 for a System And Method For Selection Of Media Items discloses searchable media items based on tagged metadata in accordance with user selection. Sorts may be performed to organize the output in a user-selected order. In one embodiment, a list of photos may include an embedded query command which may be based on file attributes, image characteristics, and/or photo metadata such as tagged keywords.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20070011138 issued to Boucard et al. on Jan. 11, 2007 for a System And Method For Interactive Data Management discloses articles that may be linked to data including multimedia data. In one embodiment, an identifier identifies an article while the associated pointer identifies one or more locations of all data content associated with the article.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20070156770 issued to Espelien et al. on Jul. 5, 2007 for a System And Method For Controlling And/or Managing Metadata Of Multimedia has metadata with regards to multimedia is made portable with respect to one or more users, terminals, the source, and the provider and/or the content service. Users can share, transfer, transmit and, and/or access the metadata via databases, terminals, servers, and/or networks independent and or separately with respect to the multimedia.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20070208685 issued to Blumenau et al. on Sep. 6, 2007 for Systems And Methods For Infinite Information Organization has client software that provides means to create, edit, maintain, update, revise, modify, and produce metadata enabling categorization and identification of digital assets. The metadata provides tracking, locating, searching, and other features for the disclosed system. When a new digital asset is received, the system may require the end user to provide at least a portion of the metadata/categorization information. Searching/locating operations may be effected on the categorized data. Digital assets may include files, voice mails, instant message logs, e-mails or the like as well as digital asset containers such as folders, directories, disk drives, removable storage media, and the like.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20070260572 issued to Boucard et al. on Nov. 8, 2007 for an Interactive Data Management System discloses an interactive data management system that links an article to files pertaining to the article including text, image, audio, and video data without requiring the user to work through a hierarchical menu structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,484,156 issued to Gupta et al. on Nov. 19, 2002 for Accessing Annotations Across Multiple Target Media Streams discloses a system enabling the accessing of annotations across multiple target media streams. An annotation server uses a hierarchical annotations storage structure to maintain correspondence between a plurality of multimedia stream annotations in a hierarchical higher group identifier the annotations corresponding to different multimedia streams can be easily accessed concurrently by referencing the group identifier. The patent defines annotations as data (e.g., audio, text, video, etc.) that corresponds to multimedia presentation. When annotations correspond to multiple different multimedia streams, an annotation server uses a hierarchical annotations storage structure to maintain a correspondence between the annotations and a hierarchical higher group identifier. The annotations corresponding to these different multimedia streams can then be more easily accessed concurrently by using the group identifier. Annotation entries maintained by an annotation server may be made in an annotation metadata store.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,155,676 issued to Land et al. on Dec. 26, 2006 for a System And Method For Multimedia Authoring And Playback discloses more intuitive display control interfaces which are used in a multimedia authoring and playback system. This provides improved authoring of multimedia, websites, and other media-rich content. While some organization is set forth in this disclosure, it generally does not match that set forth in the DAMS system set forth herein.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,167,864 issued to Vasudevan on Jan. 23, 2007 for a Multimedia Inspection Database System (MIDAS) For Dynamic Run-time Data Evaluation discloses substructures in a data set representing physical structures that are assigned to structural groups to facilitate easy access to the data elements which represent the substructures.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,197,493 issued to Ashby et al. on Mar. 27, 2007 for a Collection Management Database Of Arbitrary Schema seeks to provide apparatus and methods for deterministically classifying and indexing objects, such as digital media and files, in a database. Upon establishing descriptive category sets, the user may select objects (such as digital media and files) having attributes perceived by the user to correspond to the descriptive category set. Searching utilities are also included.
While several attempts have been made in the art previously, providing an integrated system having a user-friendly interface that facilitates the manipulation of digital assets on a large-scale basis has generally not been seen until the present inventive system (DAMS).